Heading into a six-lap restart in Spain with a potential podium on the line, Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton finished the Barcelona race in sixth place.

And he has only himself to blame according to former F1 driver and Aston Martin ambassador Pedro de la Rosa.

Lewis Hamilton: ‘I want to go home’

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

Although Hamilton trailed his team-mate Charles Leclerc by more than 10 seconds in the battle for fourth place at the Spanish Grand Prix, he was given a late-race boost when the Safety Car bunched up the field.

He lined up P6, losing one place to George Russell in the pit stop strategies, but P3 was still on the cards.

But as Charles Leclerc attacked Max Verstappen for third, and Verstappen lost fourth to Russell, Hamilton wasn’t able to go with them.

Worse yet, he also lost sixth place on the track to Nico Hulkenberg.

Although it could be argued that Hulkenberg had an ace up his sleeve with brand new soft tyres for the restart, the end result was Hamilton wasn’t able to stop the Sauber driver from overtaking him in the final laps.

Former F1 driver De la Rosa believes that it wasn’t so much Hulkenberg’s tyres as it was Hamilton’s perception of Sauber’s pace that cost the seven-time World Champion.

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“He totally trusted it,” the Spaniard told DAZN. “He saw it was a Sauber behind, he was looking further ahead, and thought: ‘Meh, it doesn’t matter.’

“You can’t judge a driver by the car he’s in.”

As for Hamilton’s take on the Spanish GP, he summed that up with a simple: “I want to go home.”

He told media including PlanetF1.com: “I have no idea why it was so bad. Worst race I’ve experienced, balance-wise.”

Verstappen’s 10-second penalty for his actions against Russell which was announced as the race concluded meant Hulkenberg finished fifth with Hamilton P6.

“Let us take this one, digest it, be happy,” Hulkenberg told media including PlanetF1.com.

“It’s obviously a very sweet moment. The second time in points this year, but since Melbourne has obviously been a bit of a dry patch. It’s been difficult.

“I believe it puts us more on the map in the midfield fight. We’ve found the connection to that train.

“In qualy, things are very tight and everything needs to be right. But I feel like in the races, hopefully we can be there and push into it and fight with all these other guys more.

“P5 we can only dream of [in] normal races and circumstances.

“But I think obviously it was a P8 or P9 before the Safety Car, which already would have been really, really good for us.

“Everyone in the factory can be happy that the update delivered.

“It’s what we needed, but we can’t stop here, because nobody stops. We need more of the same.”

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